“So what’s the solution? North Carolina lawmakers had an interesting idea in April: Let high school students take gun classes to learn about the responsibility that comes with handling a firearm. After all, the country is awash in guns; rather than pretend they don’t exist, the lawmakers reasoned, perhaps it’s worth training the next generation to at least know how to use them safely.” – Jared Keller in Americans Love Guns, But Have No Idea How to Use Them [via psmag.com]
Um… Duh.
I would go much further than this and from a young age teach children how not to be victims in general.
Indeed! And that is accomplished by PARENTS and extended families, interested community members, teaching all children about individual liberty, self responsibility and self control. Of course, it really helps if the adults in a child’s life live that way themselves. Not a lot of them do these days. No idea how to turn it around, but government indoctrination “school” is not likely to be the start of it.
But in any case, kudos to those who are trying.
I agree. The only likely routes to such an education are homeschooling and perhaps private schools ideologically quite different from public ones. In my experience public schools not only discourage self defense but even encouraged the code of silence about the bad eggs. They might as well have had “submit to aggression and never bother us with the details” posters up in the hallways.
If you’re counting on government schools to teach REAL gun safety or how not to be a victim, it’s going to be a long wait.
In our society, where men and women do not marry for life, there are many broken homes. Having to pay money for the wife and child support, as well as trying to have a life and a seperate plce to hang your hat is very expensive. The children from these families(as well as those where a parent is disabled) get the dirty end of the stick. The parents are stressed out, do not have money to take the kids out for proper instruction, so they learn from tv, movies and the net.
Sadly, the popular movies, tv, and even some videos on the net show the weapon as a toy, shooting stuff up that they shouldn’t and showing bad gun habits, like shooting a handgun sideways.
Most of us pay into the education system and should expect all kids to be familar with proper, safe handling techniques as well as what is socially unacceptable behavior with firearms. I would think that it should be included in the safety courses and 6th grader takes at school. Later courses in high school that are required in your state for graduation should go into firearm safety in more detail.
Finally a sane idea.
We teach our kids about everything else “not to do”, or “be careful with-whatever”
Kinda like the DARE program, The left should be all over that
You’re serious? DARE is one of the most moronic, idiotic, feel good programs that the progtards have dreamed up. More how to with blow tax $ than anything else. AND is well proven to accomplish NOTHING. I kept my kids out of the BS..
This is just the first step in the NRA’s ultimate plan to arm babies at birth with “Baby Glocks.”
That’s the most outlandish thing I’ve ever read…
Everyone knows it’s the 1st bday present.
Guess I was falling down on my job as a parent since I bought myself a Glock when my daughter was born. I should have bought her a Baby Glock to go with it; my only defense is that I have made up for it since!
Be sure to get her a ‘My First AR’.
(Loading magazines is a great way to improve finger dexterity in small kids…)
“My First AR”… Isn’t that kind of what Nerf guns are, AR-15s for first-graders?
A good gift idea for a baby shower.
And what tree did you fall out of? Until the dumbassocrats and liberals took over the school system in mid 70s every public school had some form of firearm safety training. And most of the high schools had rifle ranges and shooting teams. And that went back to the 50s! And long before that in most rural areas kids could bring their shotguns or .22s to school. They checked them into their coat closets in their classroom and used them to hunt with on the way home. Even many rural areas still cancel classes the first day of hunting season because they know how important that is. FLAME DELETED
My dad was on the HS rifle team in the 1920’s. In Kankakee,Illinois…it goes back forever. I sure don’t trust public schooling NOW!
My HS had a rifle range, ROTC program, wood shop, metal shop and auto mechanics.
All those are gone now, thanks to the great mass of liberal progressives that have run the schools here for the last 40 years. Manual labor was declared demeaning and guns/military too dangerous.
The only things most youths today know how to do is fart, shit, phone and make trouble.
Got to be careful what you wish for.
Sure, nuts and bolts firearm safety is great and everyone should know how to at least make a firearm safe.
Start letting social scientist hyper-partisan anti’s run “firearm safety” courses and all you’ll get is a cop yelling at the students and four hours of watching baby mommas crying over their dead gangbanger kids followed by a montage of sad music and Lanza/Lougner/Cho faces and crime scene photos.
If you really want to increase the interest in firearms ownership among teens, bring a cop into a classroom and tell them they shouldnt be into that sort of stuff.
Bingo. How well did DARE work? Worked wonders for the cartel…
Bingo! No body remembers DARE. How good was that?
Better to start with classes on self discipline which (having passed that one) should be the prerequisite for the gun safety class.
I actually remember DARE quite well, I got in a bunch of trouble in that class for asking “inappropriate questions”.
We had this scare story that basically boils down to this: A guy goes home and takes a few hits off a bong. He doesn’t feel good afterwords and starts freaking out so he goes to the bathroom. When he gets there he looks in the mirror and see his reflection is a horrible monster. Unable to process/deal with this he runs to his bedroom and commits suicide by shotgun.
So I asked two questions.
Did he leave a note? To which the State Trooper replied that the poor man did not.
Then how do you know what he saw in the mirror?
That’s how you get sent to the office.
Sending S9 to the office is sort of like the Streisand Effect, isn’t it?
S9 asks a pointed question, cop moves on without answering it, five minutes later 90% of the kids can’t remember the question.
S9 asks a pointed question, teacher sends S9 to the principal’s office. Kids tune out on the DARE lecture and spend the next 10 minutes thinking about why that particular question got S9 ejected from the room.
My father says I’ve been an iconoclast from a young age. My Middle and High School administrators would agree with that statement.
Personally I prefer the term “OG Iconoclast”.
But yeah, education is all about how you teach something. D.A.R.E. is useless and easily shot down because it’s mainly based on bullshit propaganda that doesn’t make any sense and therefore causes children to distrust adults when they realize the adults flat out lied to them. Then there’s that whole “freedom and liberty” thing but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.
Strych9 = iconoclast = a fancy word for “bomb thrower”.
If asking questions simple questions that someone can’t answer because their whole story is made up bullshit makes me a “bomb thrower” then I’ll happily accept the title.
You’ll note I’m generally pretty civil but I do demand that folks back up their statements with substance, facts, logic and data rather than just make shit up and call it an acceptable argument.
When I, as a 6th grader, could ask two basic questions about a story and end up getting sent to the office the problem isn’t with me. If you think the problem was with me then clearly there’s a problem with you.
Require teaching the manual of arms for the AR15 (loading, unloading, dis-assembly, stance and troubleshooting) as part of it. That will disqualify 99.9% of the liberals who would use it politically.
We need to re-establish the traditional militia system and organize and train everyone, using the process to also screen out those unfit for the responsibility. We could convert the selective service boards (which still exist) into militia boards.
I like this idea. Except….
What do we do with those who lack responsibility? Send them to the United Kingdom, Australia?
The unfit would tend to be relegated to a lower class of citizen, still able to vote, but without many of the privileges and opportunities. Dependents. Much the same as we now do with the very young and the elderly and infirm.
Why “able to vote”? You’re talking about a change to the constitution, why not get them out of the voting pool, as well?
No change needed to Constitution. Read the militia clauses, which provide all the authority needed.
“No change needed to Constitution. Read the militia clauses, which provide all the authority needed.”
No, they don’t say anything about “second class citizens.”
So it would require a re-writing of the constitution.
The Constitution leaves leaves eligibility to vote to the states, which are what maintain the disabilities of minority on persons under the age of 18. We already pressure the disabled and those over 65 to retire, or accept lesser-grade employment, which is mostly done informally. I am not discussing “formal” second-class citizenship. No need for laws or constitutional amendments.
In colonial times the unfit were informally relegated to fewer opportunities, such as not owning land.
“Americans Love Guns, But Have No Idea How to Use Them ”
We control the upper and lower house, and the White House.
And the excuse a bill rectifying this situation is… is…
Where?
This is something we can corner the Leftists on.
“I thought Progressives were all about safety. Why don’t you want the kids learning how not to die due to ignorance?”
We need a way to keep it from being hijacked by anti-gun scum that infests teachers unions. I think the easiest way would be to require the course also teach the basic mechanics and manual of arms for the US military’s current rifle or commercial equivalent (which will be the AR15 platform for the foreseeable future).
“We need a way to keep it from being hijacked by anti-gun scum that infests teachers unions.”
That, unfortunately, is a damn good point.
“I think the easiest way would be to require the course also teach the basic mechanics and manual of arms for the US military’s current rifle or commercial equivalent (which will be the AR15 platform for the foreseeable future).”
We have plenty of retired military folks who could fill that role nicely…
Ex military for teachers??
That will never work!
Ohhh wait it did! For me and my parents who were taught be vets who came home and not sacred little Berkley protester want-to-be’s!
My kids had a retired AF colonel for 2nd grade teacher. Did a great job.
Great idea.
Better to have formal training in firearms safety than continuing to let people learn from Movies, TV Shows and Video Games, as seems to be the case from what I see at shooting ranges. However Shire-Man makes an astute point (above) about allowing the Leftist-dominated Public Schools set the curriculum. Many of the Public Schools are seriously broken and I wouldn’t trust the results they would produce under the current situation.
Nowadays I shoot at a well-organized and managed Range because they have a Range Master on the Firing Line all the time who monitors shooters, gives a thorough overview of Range Rules and Firearms Safety to first timers and newbies. As compared to other Ranges I have used where shooters are on their own once let into the firing line area, this arrangement is much preferable. It’s easier to concentrate on what you are doing when you don’t have to wonder what numbnuts is “painting” you at any given moment. But even at this Range I see people who have no idea of stance, trigger control, proper sighting. When I see large paper targets shot with a pistol that have shot-holes scattered all over the place at 5-10 yards distance, I can agree with this guy that…“a significant portion of…gun owners have no idea how to use their weapons”. Safety and actual Shooting Techniques/Shot Placement are kind of a “package deal”.
Personally, I think Grade School, Middle School and High School students should be instructed in a variety of Safety Issues, most definitely including Firearms Safety, provided the curriculum is developed and administered by a rational, unbiased resource. Good luck with that.
Do any of you see a reason to trust university staff to handle curriculum, standards, or to determine who would teach gun safety classes? Can you imagine guest speakers such as Shannon Watts or one of the Brady Bunch?
I know I don’t Rusty. My brother has homeschooled (10 kids!) and my son home schools my grandkids. While in theory public schools could teach gun safety they sure don’t have a track record worth emulating. Mostly a left-wing laboratory for SJW BS. Keep the gubmint out of this…
“Teacher? Do we put the condom on this end or that one?”
The article is about a study done by the Univ. of Washington, and basically claims that gun owners that have not received formal training are incompetent. It’s a bullshit conclusion.
This class in Chicago Times 1000!
IT might not stop the violence right away!
But given enough time?
When the gangsters all learn to shoot straight and hit the target…the problem will go slowly away by itself!
As it by magic!
This is the subject for my 50 page college paper.
Integrating the Second Amendment into grades K thru 12 using the Kentucky Education Standards.
There is a great deal of information. And most gun owners, let alone the general public are unaware of. Diversity is a good word to use in describing this history.
While the discussion on education has been good, recall that the study itself that was cited was based upon the progressive political belief in experts and in credentialism. A survey respondent could be very safety conscious and safe–self-study and informal training with friends and family–and would be labeled as “ignorant and unsafe”. Similarly, someone who has taken a single class–hunter safety or something even less thorough–would be called “knowledgeable and safe”.
The cited conclusions do not follow from the survey.